The “low volume – high price” segment of the clothing sector produces high-end luxury fashion targeted towards wealthy consumers. It includes retail production of luxury brands (e.g. Armani, Hugo Boss), prototyping of clothing development at big brands (e.g. Zara, H&M) and high end exclusive automotive interior trim (e.g. Ferrari, Bentley).
These all have a distinctive need: the quality of the cut, sewed fabrics and the flexibility for introducing changes and personalisation. They currently rely on highly skilled artisans, who cut the material by hand to produce top quality material pieces. A growing problem that is being faced by players in this sector is the shortage of these highly skilled workers, in the face of continued growth of the sector. According to a European Commission report, “…[there is] difficulty to bring promising youths and talents to the T&C sector, because the image of the industry is not very attractive…market fragmentation tends to lower the grade of quality of clothing and textile in the EU and its chances of further successful developments.”
It’s estimated that for each vacancy that a business fails to fill, it results in an opportunity cost of about €100K per year. This has led to the requirement to mechanise the low-volume cutting process. Cutting machines that are currently available on the market, which cut stacked layers of material by holding them in place using vacuum systems and an oscillating blade, have a set of drawbacks:
• The vacuum system requires high energy usage and additional consumables (plastic, paper and felt/rubber) to create the envelope which traps the suctioned air
• The precision and accuracy of the cut when using the competitors cutting machines is of a poorer quality than the high quality cut obtained when the fabric is cut by hand.
• With several layers being stacked and cut at the same time under the vacuum system, the pressure over the descending layers deforms them, decreasing their dimensional stability and so the precision of the cut.
The overall objective of this project is to develop an advanced textile cutting technology, which enables automated low volume cutting of fabrics with the quality of the cut similar to that of an experienced artisan.
